A NEW YORK REVIEW E-BOOK ORIGINAL As former U.S. poet laureate Charles Simic has said, the secret to our identities lies not in grand events, but in the parenthesesnbsp;between events--and in these brief essays, we get a taste of this great poet's parenthetical observations and recollections. He takesnbsp;us from his rattling house on a stormy New Hampshire night, to a park bench in Washington Square where two old men sit discussing the women they've known, to a business convention in Topeka where he reads a poem, to the vanished subterraneannbsp;jazz clubs of old New York, and beyond. Part autobiographical fragment, part waking dream, these pieces are marked by Simic'snbsp;characteristic wit, audacity, and awe before life's strangeness. Contents include: --Reminiscing about the Night Before --Strangers on a Train --Confessions of a Poet Laureate --The Blustering Blast --The Buster Keaton Cure --On Losing --On the Couch with Philip Roth, at the Morgue with Pol Pot